Next door to Zhao Chen and Annie's office was a laboratory,
so that they could do experiments conveniently.
But though it was next door, between the two stood a wall to rival a warship's hull armor, and within the wall were several star-shields that could be raised as well.
For some experiments carried risk, after all.
When experiments were being done, these star-shields would be raised.
Besides that, the laboratory itself had layer upon layer of protection.
At this moment Annie was alone in the office.
Annie looked this way and that with shifty eyes, making sure no one else was there,
and that Zhao Chen was busy in the laboratory with an experiment.
Grinning, she took out a well-kept tub of ice cream from the false bottom of her drawer.
All this while her little sister Nana had often come over, and every time she came, if she caught the least smell of snacks,
she would make one clean sweep.
So this landlord's store of spare grain was running low.
Now, at last, everyone was out,
and Annie could indulge her cravings.
She eyed the ice cream tub before her, still giving off cold vapor, and could smell a faint scent of fruit.
Annie swallowed, picked up her spoon, and made ready to enjoy it properly.
But the next second a huge shock suddenly
knocked Annie's bottom right off her chair and sat her down on the floor.
The ice cream tub in her hand landed on her face.
Before long,
the voices of two people talking and their footsteps came nearer.
"How could it explode? The few materials we added were all very stable. By rights, whatever happened, it shouldn't have exploded," Chief Engineer Nana said, puzzled.
"Maybe something's wrong somewhere in our theoretical data. But that's normal enough; how could experiments ever go without mistakes? The more so since we're looking for a new material. Some people never finish experiments like this in their whole lives." Zhao Chen was rather calm about it, if anything.
There was no telling at all that he had lately made a bet with someone.
In general there were only two ways to find a new high-strength material.
One was to take existing materials and refine them by some means, until in the end some new material was synthesized or extracted.
And the other way was naturally the simplest: to discover a place where some new material was produced, and gather it directly.
Zhao Chen had chosen to work on both at once.
That way, though it would add to his own pressure and the effort spent,
the chance of success could be greatly raised.
Chatting with Nana, Zhao Chen walked back to the office.
The laboratory was very close to the office, a matter of a few steps.
And now Zhao Chen walked into the office,
and saw Annie with both hands behind her back, looking at them with an odd expression.
And on her head was some white stuff.
"Annie, what's that on your head?" Nana too had noticed the thing on her big sister's head, and asked, puzzled.
Annie felt like a thief with a guilty conscience; her eyes darted about, she hesitated a moment, and then explained at once, "This is my new hair ornament. I've used my old hair ornament a long while. I wanted a new one. A change of mood, and who knows, maybe I'll make some new discovery in my work?"
Nana looked at Annie suspiciously; plainly she did not believe this sister of hers.
Nana walked toward Annie.
But Annie kept backing away.
"Don't come over here. I… I've got very important work over here; don't come and bother me yet."
"My hair ornament is a bit shy; it's not fit to be seen right now."
"I… I……"
Annie backed into the corner, with nowhere left to go.
Nana reached out and touched the top of Annie's head, and at once there was white goo on her hand.
Then she touched it lightly to her lips.
Then she glared at Annie. "Whose hair ornament tastes of strawberry?"
As she spoke, she pulled out the hand Annie was hiding behind her back,
showing the ice cream tub, now one mass of mush.
"That'll do. If you want to eat it, just say so; nobody said you couldn't." Zhao Chen looked at Annie, who looked so wronged she might start shedding pearls at any moment.
Annie's lips moved, muttering who knew what, most likely words of complaint.
Zhao Chen went over to his own side of the office; in the corner stood a machine that had been delivered only today.
Zhao Chen opened it and took out two bottles of drink, and tossed one to Nana.
"There's ice cream down below. If you want some, come straight over here and take it. But not too much in one day; it's bad for your health. True, with our present technology, if you fall ill you're well again in no time. But it still has an effect on the body. And too many injections of those medicines will build up a resistance to them too." Zhao Chen gave his instructions like a big brother.
At this point Annie came over, suspicious.
She found that this machine was nothing but a refrigerator!
Inside it now was laid out every kind of good thing to eat and drink:
drinks, and every kind of top-grade fruit, and expensive brand-name ice cream and ice pops.
"I can eat all of these?" Annie looked at Zhao Chen.
"Mind you show some restraint." Zhao Chen took a sip of his drink and said it.
Annie giggled, and at once hugged a tub of ice cream out of it.
"Clean off the top of your head first," Zhao Chen said.
"Hee hee, got it." Annie touched the ice cream on her head with a finger, and licked her finger again,
then ran into the restroom beside them.
"Your Majesty, you spoil my sister far too much." Nana was drinking the drink Zhao Chen had just given her.
Zhao Chen said with a smile, "Work and rest in balance. Besides, it's not as if Annie doesn't work hard; a bit of enjoyment in moderation is no bad thing."
When Zhao Chen had teased Annie before, it had only been because he liked seeing the look on the lass's face when he played tricks on her.
He had given her no real punishment.
Nana shook her head helplessly.
"Then what's to be done next about the raw materials project? The difficulty is no small thing," Nana asked.
"When you've time, keep an eye on it for me. You're still mainly in charge of those few project plans," Zhao Chen said coolly.
The road of developing it themselves was a very hard one to walk.
Zhao Chen naturally knew that very well.
He had made himself ready for it in his mind as well.
"Very well." Nana nodded.
"Big ice cream, I love to eat. Big ice cream, the best to eat……" Annie, having cleaned herself up, came scampering over, all smiles, hugging that ice cream tub, and plopped down on the floor at Zhao Chen's feet.
She picked up her spoon and began to eat.
The ice cream tub was a full twenty or thirty centimeters high, near enough; sitting on the floor, Annie seemed to be holding a whole bowl in her arms.
Zhao Chen lowered his head and looked at Annie enjoying herself.
Somehow he had a feeling of déjà vu, as though watching a Shiba Inu eat.
"I'll go and look in on another project first." When he had finished his drink, Zhao Chen rose, took his leave of Nana and Annie, and went.
Behind him, Nana glared at Annie.
Annie stuck out her tongue at Nana; this ice cream tub had been given her by His Majesty!
Zhao Chen did not notice the merriment behind him.
He had already stepped onto a hover lift and entered his destination.
At this point a video call came in.
It was Lilith.
"Lilith." Zhao Chen looked at Lilith on the other side.
Before Lilith could speak, Zhao Chen went on, "Stand a bit farther back; I can't see all of you."
Lilith stepped back a few paces helplessly, so that Zhao Chen could see the whole of her.
Zhao Chen's gaze fell on Lilith's belly, slightly rounded.
"You're less than a month from your due date now, aren't you? And your belly's still this small?" Zhao Chen asked, somewhat worried.
Lilith explained, "It's fine; it's a trait of us succubi. The physicians have examined me too; everything is healthy. And I'm only carrying one child, so of course it doesn't show as much as Charlotte's twins."
"You've less than a month left; take care of yourself!" Zhao Chen charged her gravely once again.
"I know, I know. Every time we talk business, you have to bring this up." Lilith said it with her lips, but her eyes were full of happiness.
"Of course I have to remind you. High-tech medicine or no, in everything we must guard against the one chance in ten thousand!" Zhao Chen said gravely.
"All right. Now that we've finished discussing the child, can Your Majesty talk about business?" Lilith said helplessly.
"Mm." Only then did Zhao Chen let Lilith off.
"In this time things within the Empire have in the main recovered to the level of prewar order. And the production plans to follow are going smoothly. A new batch of T6 warships, the T6 Purple-Gold Silver Dragon-class Heavy Interstellar Battleship and the T6 White-Jade Black Tortoise-class Heavy Interstellar Strategic Escort, is about to be delivered for use. Output within the Empire is at present rising at a rate of 3% a month. Because our Owl Dragon Empire is still in a stage of fast growth in technological advance, we expect total output to rise by over 30% this year, even close to 40%. And there's hope of keeping an average rise of 30% for the next ten years. By then the Owl Dragon Empire's total output will be about fifteen times what it is now. And that figure is a rather conservative estimate. If no war breaks out, the figure could in fact be broken. What I have in mind is that in the next ten years our Owl Dragon Empire can rise thirtyfold!"
Lilith said it with complete assurance.
A thirtyfold rise in ten years.
Even Zhao Chen himself had no such great confidence in his own estimates.
But seeing so assured an attitude in Lilith, his housekeeper, Zhao Chen said nothing more,
and chose to believe it.
After Lilith had reported some other matters, the communication came to its end.
"If there's nothing else, let's leave it there for now. I'm already outside the door of another project office." Zhao Chen stopped before the door of a project office.
Lilith hesitated a moment and said, "I know what you're in charge of now is very important. But you should still look in on Big Sister Charlotte more. The two children are young now, but they need their father's company too. When you have time, you should go and see them."
Hearing this, Zhao Chen nodded slightly.
He naturally knew the truth of it.
At present he had video calls with the children and Charlotte nearly every day, and for it had even had holographic projection equipment fitted specially in the rooms where they lived, so that his image could appear before the children as a hologram,
to draw closer to them.
But a false thing was a false thing in the end.
Only, Zhao Chen had no choice for now.
He had a great many things to deal with.
"I'll make time as best I can." It was all Zhao Chen could leave her with.
Lilith sighed; she too knew the pressure Zhao Chen bore now, and said nothing more on the question.
"Then take care to rest too, and don't let the pressure get too great. If there's trouble, there are all of us to carry it with you," Lilith said.
Zhao Chen nodded.
The communication ended there.
Zhao Chen steadied his feelings,
and went toward that project plan's office.
The office was very large; in it were a dozen or more scientists, researchers and engineers recruited from every part of the Empire.
The moment Zhao Chen came in, they all looked at him.
"Get on with your own work," Zhao Chen said.
These people said nothing more, and went on with what they were doing.
Zhao Chen went to a glass cubicle at the very back.
In the glass cubicle was a girl with twin tails and round-rimmed glasses, facing several electronic screens and adjusting figure after figure.
Looking closely, one would find there were spots of light on the twin-tailed girl's skin.
For she was one of the Sacred Spirit people from the Holy Radiance Kingdom: Camille, called the Holy Radiance Kingdom's genius girl scientist.
But the field she researched was rather special:
chiefly the theory of cosmic space; she had dabbled in other fields too, though she had not mastered them.
So she could be counted an all-round scientist, and could even build starships.
Zhao Chen had once thought of training her to be a future Chief Engineer.
But Camille had said that, were it possible, she would rather research in the direction of unknown technology, above all the science of cosmic space.
As it happened, Zhao Chen's return this time,
and the plan before them now, matched Camille's inclinations exactly.
So Zhao Chen had drawn Camille over in secret and made her the head of this project plan.
On the face of it, this project plan was a search for new materials, and Zhao Chen had indeed sent out some interstellar reconnaissance ships to search everywhere.
But Zhao Chen held no great hope of it.
In this universe there were undiscovered raw materials, yes, but to meet the needs of T7 technology was far too hard.
Rather than look for something unclear, better to look for something that had an answer:
the raw material from the small universe in Zhao Chengcheng's Star Alliance universe, back then.
But Zhao Chen's Owl Dragon universe did not have that raw material.
For its nature was to be born at the very beginning of a universe, which was also why that small universe had no intelligent life in it at all.
And the true purpose of this project plan department of Zhao Chen's was to look for small universes of that kind.
Moreover, among the technologies the System had left in Zhao Chen's head there were things in this line, and among the technologies Zhao Chengcheng's side had shared there was this part too.
Joined with Zhao Chen's own groping, he had had a blueprint of the idea in mind long since.
"Are you sure this device can let us find other universes?" The scientist Camille pushed up her peculiar round-rimmed glasses and looked at Zhao Chen before her.
"I can't be sure. In scientific research nothing can be guaranteed. But if we don't build it, how will we know it won't work!" Zhao Chen said firmly.